Using The Shining In Spring 2014 Class

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
Walter, I think I inadvertently ignored your question about Paradise Lost. Certainly it contains elements of horror--Mary Shelley's creature in Frankenstein uses Satan as a comparable pathetic creature, but then, Satan is both antagonist and hero--an anti-hero--and created what we refer to as the Byronic anti-hero, the brooding, conflicted villain/main character who ethically we must oppose, even if we can have sympathy for the devil. We understand his motivation for opposing God, but that doesn't make it right or good, just as Shelley's creature must die. They are Uncanny, but also Abject, rejected in human and spiritual society. You could take a Darwinian stance that this is part of herd mentality, the survival of the fittest, in singling out certain unfit candidates for ostracization. In novels like Heart of Darkness, the horror comes from the European heart which has imperially imposed a system that natives must reject, because it is tyrannical, but which individual members of its society discover, in dramatically ironic fashion, that they are the sources of the horror they fear. So, yes, I suppose you could argue that the son of perdition is the chief character in a work of horror, certainly on an epic scale.
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
I'm going to be using The Shining in my Spring 2014 Gothic Literature and Film class on Tue-Thurs at 1 pm. The lineup is as follows:
Frankenstein (Gothic, 1931 Frankenstein, and Kenneth Branaugh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death (American International Films with Vincent Price)
Dracula (1931 Bela Lugosi and 1991 Gary Oldman, commentary by Christopher Lee)
Candyman (film and Clive Barker's "The Forbidden")
The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin)
The Shining (King and Stanley Kubrick's film)
Beloved (Toni Morrison and Jonathan Demme)

I've used Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting before, as well as Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Ed Gein. Have any of you ever taken any literature classes with a horror theme? Would you take one if you could?
Absolutely. My husband went to a high school with $ to burn (lol) that offered an English class specifically on Fantasy & Sci-Fi, & that's the class he still remembers many years later :) You have to reach people where they are--if it takes horror to get them into classic lit, it's as good a place to start as any :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Neesy

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Just an update: I've now got 18 in the class! Biggest literature class on campus! We just got done with Frankenstein (we watched Gothic, 1931 and 1994 versions of the films), just got through with my lecture on Edgar Allan Poe and about to show the American International film versions of Masque of the Red Death and The Pit and the Pendulum. Everything except technical stuff is going smoothly--I swear, our IT dept really sucks!
Your "IT" Department?



:eek-new:
 
  • Like
Reactions: morgan

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
We are half way through The Shining now. They are already on board with King vs. Kubrick. I got some interesting reactions to The Exorcist, lol;
the masturbation with the crucifix scene
disturbed a few, but they were warned via disclaimer on the syllabus and before I showed it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

taylor29

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2014
103
391
Just an update: I've now got 18 in the class! Biggest literature class on campus! We just got done with Frankenstein (we watched Gothic, 1931 and 1994 versions of the films), just got through with my lecture on Edgar Allan Poe and about to show the American International film versions of Masque of the Red Death and The Pit and the Pendulum. Everything except technical stuff is going smoothly--I swear, our IT dept really sucks!

I am working on a writing degree and I love the horror lit class idea. I was just thinking about how this forum is a great example of literary critique in real life...made willingly by folks who genuinely love the books. That rarely happens in a class environment unless you make it interesting enough to draw students in...Horror lit...Just a spectacular idea. I've taught English Skills classes at a two-year college but once I get this degree, I will work with Comp I and II students...I might have to hit you up for some ideas, Cybrid9.
 
Last edited:

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
No problem, Taylor. We just wrapped up the class on Monday, and I got three papers on The Shining, one comparing the novel to movie. The student in question was particularly critical of Wendy's character, so I was very gratified by their responses this time around. Quite a lot of students compared The Exorcist and Beloved, as well, and I even got some responses on Candyman. Overall, it was a good class and a good time had by all!:)